Snooty means acting superior to others and looking down on them as if they're not good enough. A snooty person might refuse to sit with certain classmates at lunch because they think those kids aren't cool enough, or turn up their nose at someone's clothes or hobbies.

The word captures both an attitude and the expression that goes with it: imagine someone literally lifting their nose in the air while looking at you sideways, as if you smell bad. That's the image behind snooty. When someone acts snooty, they're being stuck-up and treating others as inferior.

You might encounter snooty characters in books who only want to associate with rich or popular people, or a snooty customer at a store who treats the employees rudely because they think service workers are beneath them. The word often describes people who care too much about money, status, or reputation.

Being snooty is different from being confident or having high standards. Confidence means believing in yourself; being snooty means thinking you're better than everyone else. A snoot is an informal term for someone who acts this way regularly. People don't like being around snooty people because they can make others feel small and unwelcome.